San Diego Company’s ‘Boo U’ Helps Sales Force Prepare for Halloween

The scene at National Theme Productions’ recent sales and marketing meeting was decidedly different: A rabbit popped out of a hat just as a witch strolled by. The devil idly twirled a pitchfork while a lone wolf howled and Giggles the Ghost pulled up its socks.

A cheerleader and a sweatshirt-clad coach exhorted the assembled sales managers--many of whom wore “UB” varsity letter sweaters--to get in shape for the rapidly approaching season that culminates with the “big game” on Oct. 31.

Welcome to the University of Boo--or Boo U, as it’s also known--the annual costume affair that blends sales-training techniques with fantasy and fashion to ready NTP’s sales force for the coming Halloween sales season. San Diego-based NTP expects to sell $30 million worth of costumes and accessories during the month before Halloween--with about half of its sales coming during the last week in October.

During last month’s training session, NTP introduced 150 of its temporary regional and area sales managers to the company’s product line. Those managers will in turn train 1,000 temporary managers and 7,000 temporary sales clerks who will sell apparel and accessories from space leased in major retailers’ stores.

This year, NTP will open “Boo-tiques” in 440 Sears, Roebuck stores, 340 J. C. Penney outlets and 140 Montgomery Ward stores. It will also open a Boo-tique in Macy’s New York store and in various department stores around the country.

During September, NTP will be San Diego’s largest outbound freight shipper, according to President W. Paul Sullivan, as it rushes thousands of boxes filled with costumes, masks, facial paint and seasonal fashion accessories to 1,000 Boo-tiques in retail stores in the United States and Canada.

Last year, NTP’s 850 Halloween Boo-tiques sold $22-million worth of scary, seductive or downright foolish costumes. Half of the sales came during the seven days before Halloween, Sullivan said.

“Talk about white-knuckle time,” said Sullivan, who sold his Santa Monica-based drug store chain in 1981, shortly after joining NTP. “This is a fun business, but it can also run our people ragged.”

“They say it’s a 30-day season, but in reality it’s a 10-day season,” according to John Wurmlinger, director of Sears’ national concessions and leased space operations. “That’s when the bird really flies, during those last 10 days (before Halloween).”

The nation’s retailers have become increasingly aware of the sales they can harvest from ghosts, goblins, witches and the like.

Retailers view NTP’s Boo-tiques as a profitable way to “fill the gap between back-to-school sales and the holiday season,” according to Sears’ Wurmlinger. “Traditionally, October is not a gang-busters month for the retailing industry.”

And, Halloween Boo-tiques “make the store more exciting,” according to George Stasick, manager of customer services for Dallas-based J. C. Penney. “It’s a fun business.”

NTP “stays away from the fads, which are fleeting, and sticks to the trends that are longer-lasting,” according to NTP chief designer Joanellen Blakeley, who sees adults and children alike being captivated by fantasy. “There is a tremendous resurgence of fantasy, with all the old movies being released,” Blakeley pointed out.

Mostly Adult Costumes

In addition to more fashionable designs, consumers are demanding costumes that are comfortable, safe and durable. In recent years, NTP has courted parents by marketing its childrens’ and toddlers’ costumes as garments that are sturdy and safe enough to double as pajamas or playwear.

Children aren’t the only ones dressing up and stepping out to trick-or-treat or party. Adult costumes and accessories accounted for 80% of NTP’s $22 million in 1987 sales. The company offers “mix-and-match” outfits that run from $10 to $50.

NTP, which grew from just 15 seasonal Boo-tiques in Southern California in 1980, has enjoyed rapid growth because its executives correctly identified a growing trend toward more sophisticated costumes.

Sullivan said that NTP’s success comes in part from the fact that Boo-tiques offer a “mix and match” blend of costumes and accessories that let customers design their own look. Adults also seem to appreciate NTP’s makeup kits, which offer detailed “paint by number” instructions.

Sullivan stumbled into the costume business during the 1970s after his wife, Karen, a theatrical makeup artist, persuaded him to sell theatrical makeup at his three drug stores. When makeup sales soared, Sullivan fashioned his first Halloween Boo-tique by adding items--eye patches, inexpensive jewelry, cotton gloves and other accessories--that were already sitting on shelves elsewhere in his stores.

Sullivan joined NTP in 1979, after meeting its founder, a magician who had opened a seasonal Halloween magic shop in a Sears store in San Diego. However, the magician “had no retail experience at all . . . he was simply selling merchandise off of tables,” according to Sullivan, who sold the pharmacies in 1981 in order to better manage NTP’s growth.

Some Painful Choices

While Sullivan’s retail experience was enough to guide NTP’s initial explosive growth, the executive recently turned several functions over to a pair of professional executives. NTP recently hired a marketing executive from Mattel, the toy manufacturer, and a merchandise/distribution executive from a Midwest department store chain.

Replacing longtime employees with outsiders is “not a comfortable position to be in,” Sullivan acknowledged. “It requires making some painful choices and sometimes you have to do things that run contrary to your gut feelings because the business demands it.”

NTP recently purchased a powerful computer that will help to better manage product shipments during the company’s hectic, one-month sales season. And Sullivan hopes to link that computer to Boo-tiques around the country through the point of sale computer systems at Sears, Penney and Ward.

NTP is profitable, according to Thomas and Sullivan, NTP’s sole owners. But profit margins could get fatter if NTP succeeds in a program that would extend the company’s 30-day selling season.

This fall, NTP will retrain some of its Halloween staff to operate Christmas boutiques at 200 Sears stores. The “Crystal Shops” will offer assorted fine crystal, jewelry, prisms, pendants and bracelets. Next year, NTP hopes to offer a proprietary line of Christmas items that are being dreamed up by a designer that NTP hired away from the Franklin Mint.

The Christmas boutiques would stretch NTP’s sales season to three months--October, November and December, a move that would make NTP more attractive to seasonal employees, according to Sullivan.

More Expensive Line

NTP also is experimenting with a boutique that could broaden NTP’s business beyond Sears and Penney customers “who generally shop by pocketbook,” Sullivan said.

This fall, NTP will open a prototype boutique in an Atlanta department store that will offer a new, upscale line of costumes aimed at consumers who won’t blink an eye at paying $100 for a costume. The costumes offered for sale will be “more masquerade-oriented, along the lines of Mardi Gras,” according to Sullivan.

NTP recently won a potentially important court battle that could offer legal protection to costume manufacturers that each year lose sales to “knock offs” manufactured by competitors. The U.S. District Court decision “gives us a copyright on new, innovative designs that we create,” Sullivan said. “In the past few years, a lot of costume manufacturers have been copying NTP’s designs. Now, they can’t do that without paying us licensing fees.”

Previously, courts had held that “costumes were apparel,” according to Sullivan.

“We represented to the courts that they (are) a representation of art and design,” Sullivan said. “Our designs aren’t (in the same league as) brain surgery, but they are intricate.”